JOB INTERVIEWS - III

Third, the interviewee liked the idea of creating a “performing persona.”

In his case, he was switching careers–from finance to marketing–and he understood that he needed to think of himself and be a marketer now in interviews.

We’ve created different personas for different relationships all our lives. You learned, at least by the age of 5, that who you were on mommie’s lap was not who you were in kindergarten, and vice versa. Successful social relationships depended on your making a distinction between who you were as a son and who you were as a student and who you were as a playmate.

Pity the high school cheerleader who never learns another role–never becomes a wife when she marries, a mother when she has children–and is still a cheerleader at 65. Pity, too, the high school brain who tried to imitate the cheerleaders instead of learning who she herself was.

Paradoxically, we create ourselves, learn who we truly are, by shifting from role to role. In each role we have different responsibilities and different benefits, display and use different strengths and weaknesses.